Where those associated with Western films from around the world are laid to rest.

Monday, January 30, 2017

RIP Robert Ellis Miller

The Hollywood Reporter

By Stephen Galloway

1/30/2017

Robert Ellis Miller, Director of 'Reuben, Reuben,' Dies
at 89

He also helmed 'The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter' and 'Any
Wednesday.' His late wife was the documentarian Pola Miller.

Robert Ellis Miller, the veteran director of films
including 1968’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and 1983’s Reuben, Reuben, died
Friday. He was 89.

He had been living at the Motion Picture & Television
Country House since the death of his wife, documentarian Pola Miller (nee
Chasman), two years ago.

Miller’s film version of Heart, the 1940 Carson McCullers
novel about a deaf man’s relationship with a teenage girl in 1930s Georgia,
starred Alan Arkin and introduced an unknown Sondra Locke to the screen. Both
received Oscar nominations for their work, and the movie was nominated for a
Golden Globe in the best drama category.

“Arkin, as Singer, is extraordinary, deep and sound,”
wrote Renata Adler in a New York Times review. “Walking, with his hat jammed
flat on his head, among the obese, the mad, the infirm, characters with one
leg, broken hip, scarred mouth, failing life, he somehow manages to convey
every dimension of his character, especially intelligence.”

Dan Bronson, the writer of HBO’s The Last Innocent Man,
used Heart to teach students about the grammar of motion pictures during an
earlier career as an academic. “Heart is one of the films that gave me the
resolve to turn my back on tenure and ride the rollercoaster of Hollywood,” he
noted in an essay about the movie. “But it did more than inspire me. It moved
me.”

Miller’s most warmly received film was the comedic drama
Reuben, Reuben, starring Tom Conti as a debauched poet battling writer’s block.
The picture was included in competition at Cannes — which Miller regarded as
one of the highlights of his career — and earned Conti and writer Julius J.
Epstein Oscar nominations. It too was nominated for a Golden Globe (best
drama).

“Very much in the British tradition of quality,” noted
critic Emanuel Levy, “Robert Ellis Miller’s Reuben, Reuben is a modest,
intimate and intelligent film, featuring an Oscar-nominated turn from Tom
Conti, better known for his stage work.”

A warm, good-humored man with a love of puns and an
infectious enthusiasm, he was fond of describing how MCA Universal’s powerful
executive Lew Wasserman would confuse him with the similar-looking director
Arthur Hiller. “Miller-Hiller!” he’d bark. “Hiller-Miller!”

He spoke warmly of Bette Davis, whom he had once
directed, and whose neighbor he was in Los Angeles’ famed Colonial building,
doing a spot-on imitation of the intimidating star as she would listen,
hawk-like, then flick her cigarette ash across the floor, either in approval or
disapproval.

An astute but generous observer of the industry, Miller
recalled meeting the young Steven Spielberg, who came to visit one of his sets,
and remembered how gracious the twenty-something was.

Once asked to name the greatest myth about the movie
business, he replied: “That the camera never lies.”

At Harvard, he was president of its Dramatic Club and a
member of the Hasty Pudding Society. He entered television upon graduation,
assisting other major directors including Sidney Lumet before going on to
direct such shows as Naked City, Route 66, The Twilight Zone and The Rogues.

His first feature was 1967’s Any Wednesday, starring Jane
Fonda and Jason Robards Jr. Other credits included Sweet November, The
Buttercup Chain, The Big Truck and The Girl From Petrovka. His last film was
the 1996 ABC TV movie The Angel of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Miller and his wife spent several years living in London,
where Miller directed the Timothy Dalton starrer Hawks. Among the other A-list
stars he directed were Goldie Hawn, Anthony Hopkins, Peter Ustinov, Cicely
Tyson, Omar Sharif and James Coburn.

He received an Emmy Award nomination for 1991’s ABC drama
series Alcoa Premiere and a DGA nomination for an episode of 1963’s TV series
Breaking Point.

An active member of the Directors Guild of America,
Miller was a lifetime trustee of its pension plan. He was also a charter
founder of the Artists Rights Foundation and a member of the Motion Picture
Academy.

About Me

Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1946 I have a BA degree in American History from Cal St. Northridge. I've been researching the American West and western films since the early 1980s and visiting filming sites in Spain and the U.S.A. Elected a member of the Spaghetti Western Hall of Fame 2010.